When good turkeys go bad

While we are still in the Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I would have a turkey-related post. I wrote recently about the aggressive turkeys that hang around the place where I live and to whom I give a wide berth. Just recently, I was out for my walk and saw about ten of them spread out across the width of the street and slowly coming towards me. It was rather like those scenes in westerns where a gang of bad guys ride into town, park their horses, and then walk slowly down the main street to show that they are the boss. Like the residents in those towns who quickly move out of the way so as not to become a target of the gang, I too ducked into a side path and waited there until the turkeys strolled slowly past before coming out again and continuing on my way. I was not the only one taking evasive action. Two women with a young boy came out of their home, saw the turkeys, and quickly went back in and one of them advised me to take another route.
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Thanksgiving

Today is the American holiday known as Thanksgiving. It is a nice holiday when family and friends get together that is devoid of the crass commercialization that accompanies some other holidays like Christmas.

It is the occasion for some to reflect on the things that they are thankful for. There are many things in my life that I am very thankful for but the one that is uppermost in my mind at this moment is that Donald Trump lost the election and that there will be a new president who at least takes seriously the most dangerous crisis that we face, and that is climate change. Four more years of neglect on this critical issue, and even deliberately taking steps to make it worse as Trump was doing, would have caused serious damage.

The more immediate crisis to be dealt with is of course the covid-19 pandemic and here too it is a relief that the new president takes science seriously. My one hope is that people who are celebrating this holiday and Christmas really take steps to avoid the risk of spreading the virus. We will only know how well this turned out in late January, about the time that Trump walks or is dragged dejectedly out of the White House for the last time.

Diego Maradona has died

Considered one of the greatest footballers of all time, Maradona died at the age of 60 of a heart attack following brain surgery earlier this month.

Here he is scoring a goal for Argentina against England during their quarter-final match in the 1986 World Cup that Argentina went on to win and then go on to win the title. Even if you know nothing about football, you can appreciate the artistry, skill, and concentration on display as he weaves around the defenders and goal-keeper before gently putting the ball into the net. It is often called the greatest goal of the century.

Trump emerges from hiding to talk about the stock market

After constantly needling Joe Biden during the campaign about hiding in his basement while he was holding his rallies, the roles have suddenly switched with Trump avoiding public events while Biden has been all over the news holding press conferences to discuss his new administration and policies.

Except for very brief appearances to play golf or to make a short statement to reporters in the White House press room and not take questions, Trump has largely been in hiding. He did come out yesterday to talk about the only thing he cares about other than himself and that is the stock market which broke the 30,000 barrier for the first time. It shows how much he cares about this topic that he was able to recite from memory some statistics when on almost any other topic he has to read them off a teleprompter. (Click on the blue bird at the top right to listen to the comments without having to get the White House app.)

It is also curious that he seems to be taking credit for the market high when during the campaign he warned that if Biden were elected the markets would crash and people’s retirement savings would be wiped out.

This is so cool

Some fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey are clearly having some fun.

The monolith was found in Utah where Mormons settled. The Mormon cosmology also involves worlds other than the Earth that are inhabited. Could this monolith be a sign to Earthlings that Mormonism is the one true religion?

In the second video you can see that this monolith, unlike the rectangular slab in the film, has a triangular cross-section that points to a crack in the cliff face. Maybe, like the signal in the film that told us where to go in the universe to make contact, this is telling us that the secret is embedded in that crack in the cliff face.

We need to send a mission into that gap.

Once again I am reminded that I am really old!

I was watching the new series on Netflix titled The Queen’s Gambit that deals with a female chess prodigy entering that world that is even now highly male-dominated but was even more so in the 1960s, the period in which the show is set.

In one episode, we see her walking though a college campus and the soundtrack plays the instrumental Classical Gas by guitarist Mason Williams. It is a great piece that I know well and as soon as I heard it, I said to myself “Ha! The writers made a mistake because that music came long after the time represented in the film.” But later I looked it up and it is from 1968. I had no idea so much time had passed since I first heard it,

Here’s the tune. It is really good.

Why not move Thanksgiving permanently?

Because of the pandemic, there have been calls for people to not get together for the traditional family and friends gathering at the Thanksgiving holiday, held on the fourth Thursday of November. Such gatherings can be a major cause of virus spread and since old people are often involved, this could be hazardous. People are also being urged to not travel, but today comes news that Sunday saw the highest number of air travelers since March, suggesting that many people are ignoring that advice,
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The walls keep closing in on Trump

Yesterday, Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration who has to write a letter to authorize the president-elect’s transition team access to resources to co-ordinate and work with the existing people in government to ensure a smooth transition, finally issued the letter. It appears that she had the power to do this without getting prior approval from Trump and her not doing so for three weeks after the election was over when it was clear that Joe Biden had won had resulted in much criticism. She finally issued a letter that was somewhat whiny and self-serving, saying that she had decided on her own to issue the letter and that she had not been pressured by Trump to not do so before nor to do so now.
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These people think they’re hilarious

At a time when the pandemic is surging across the world including the US, and we know that it is mainly transmitted by airborne droplets, what does one make of people who think that it is funny to deliberately breathe into the faces of other people who are taking the appropriate precautions?

A Trump supporter outside Trump’s golf club who was not wearing a mask deliberately breathed on people who had asked him to keep away. He has now been arrested and charged with assault.
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So, not the A Team then?

The trio of lawyers labeled by Trump legal advisor Jenna Ellis as an ‘elite strike force team’ seems to have suddenly fallen apart. After a bizarre press conference in which Sidney Powell spun conspiracy theories that were even more deranged than those of Rudy Giuliani, if you can imagine it, yesterday the very same Ellis who had praised her to the skies just days before announced that
Powell had been summarily dumped by the campaign.

The Trump campaign’s legal team has moved to distance itself from the firebrand conservative attorney after a tumultuous few days in which Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the election voting process, unspooled complex conspiracy theories and vowed to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” lawsuit.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump legal team. She is also not a lawyer for the president in his personal capacity,” Giuliani and another lawyer for Trump, Jenna Ellis, said in a statement on Sunday.

Trump himself has heralded Powell’s involvement, tweeting last week that she was part of a team of “wonderful lawyers and representatives” spearheaded by Giuliani.
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